How does musical improvising affect communication between people? What kind of insights can it bring?

Two experiences in the last weeks have brought me some direct and perhaps startling challenges relating to musical improvising and how this stimulates communication between people, bringing insight, but also stirring up fear and at times a desire to reject artistic materials which in the moments of creating them seem worthless.

The first experience was in a brief workshop with Bart van Rosmalen (Royal Conservatoire of the Hague), Sean Gregory (Guildhall School) and Christian Burgess (Guildhall School). The purpose of the workshop was for Sean and Christian to meet Bart, and for us all to begin to consider how we could take some theoretical proposals I had submitted to the AHRC “Beyond Text” call further in practice. The heart of this proposal is that it aims to explore how improvisation (in a wide sense, so including musical, verbal and physical dimensions) informs and nurtures artistry in musicians. (You can view the outline proposal here.) Imagining that this group of people might be form the central engine of this Beyond Text practical research, the question for this workshop was how we might be able to work together? What would such a practical research group actually do?

We had less than an hour together, so we were never going to be able to make extensive detailed progress. Nevertheless I didn’t want to miss the opportunity to make a start. Bart and I decided that rather than a more conventional round of introductions and brainstorming around the proposal, we should begin simply by improvising together as musicians/actors, to find an initial meeting place right within the heart of the central business of the research proposal: improvisation. With almost no pre-amble then, we launched into playing together. The results were immediately energised, and interesting points came to our attention. For example, the interaction between us quickly touched on all sorts of topics we wouldn’t normally address in a first meeting: a trial and a confession scene etc; I handed my oboe to Christian, and he turned it into first a gun and then a baby; the music and action shifted rapidly from one thing to another. (You can see Bart’s observations here.). I want, however, to pick up on a particular overarching issue: the feelings of discomfort, embarrassment and nervousness we all felt in doing the improvising, and how we reflected on these immediately afterwards.

We all four experienced some considerable anxieties initially about launching into such an improvisation. Then, during the process, we were also bugged by concerns about the quality of what we were doing, whether it had useful meaning, what we might be exposing of ourselves to the others. Jumping into the unknown was perhaps essentially more worrying than exciting, and we found it only too easy to judge our own performance instantly, rather than waiting and allowing ourselves to remain curious about its possibilities. We were, however, able to stay with the process to some extent at least, and perhaps not having a director to shape the artistic content made it the more essential for us to collaborate genuinely in different duos, trios and as a quartet at different times. Most importantly, when we reflected on the improvisation and acknowledged some of our fears and artistic difficulties, I was inspired by the warmth and honesty of the communication between us, and the sense that there could be an ocean of potential in continuing this collaboration further – and we had only been in the room together for thirty minutes or so.

My second experience came during a Connecting Conversation workshop (March 7, 2008) at the Walter Maas House, where a small group of professionals including musicians (myself and some teachers from the Royal Conservatoire of the Hague), business men and a neuro psychologist came together to share expertise and debate issues on the theme of memory. As part of this workshop I was asked to present something about the AHRC “Beyond Text” application in relation to memory. I chose to use this to unpack the problematic of developing research methodologies which can meaningfully explore tacit or embodied knowledge such as the role of improvisation in artistry. As I explained to the group, my hunch is that an effective way to develop understanding of this area is to combine a range of observational and reflective approaches – video recording, drawing out participant’s perspectives through reflective conversations, engaging in iterative critical reflection on one’s own practice – and to find ways of interweaving these artistically to create a collective “memory” focused on a research question. I wanted to use the group as a sounding board for this idea, and to engage them in a small practical process through which we could create exactly such a collective memory.

After an initial discussion about the “Beyond Text” programme, the nature of research of embodied, artistic knowledge, and appropriate methodologies, we began a practical task. This was to create, as a group of ten people, a musical improvisation starting with voices. Beyond this instruction there were no other given rules for the improvisation itself, but we all knew that we would reflect on the improvisation afterwards.

The improvisation turned into a long episode (approximately 40 mins) where most of us experienced intense difficulties with embarrassment, a wish to disengage, fear and confusion about the process. It was clear from our body language and from the many disparate sounds and actions going on in the room that our musical ears were mostly feeling uncomfortable too. Yet the process continued and continued, with no one seeming to be willing to bring it categorically to an end.

In the discussion which followed it became clear to me that in spite of the apparently rubbishy artistic outcomes of our improvising, we were now beginning to communicate on a different level compared with previous conversation in the workshop – there was more eye contact between people, we spoke more honestly about our thoughts and probed some profound issues. We reflected on our own part in the improvisation and in some cases suddenly learned something important about our individual attitude – for example that as a musician I have a real problem with something not sounding “good” artistically. I immediately want to shy away from it, to stop the sounds, rather than letting it be what it is, suspending judgement about artistic “failure” and engaging with the exploration and what I may learn from that. Out of this improvisation, then, which had felt so difficult, perhaps pointless for many of us, some extraordinarily rich realisations and communication came.

These two experiences raise some fundamental questions for me:

· What is the relationship between creating a “safe” learning space and creating/taking on challenges which take us right out of a safety zone?
· Why are we so afraid of unfamiliar processes, of making music or playing together in contexts where we have to improvise and discover the language we can share?
· What kinds of learning happen in safe environments compared with when I am pushed into something unfamiliar and destabilizing? Is a launch into the unknown and the fear or desire to reject which I experience in this context necessary for the kind of learning which generates real leaps forward, quantum leaps? Can this happen within a safe learning space? Or is learning within a safe space more predictable, operating rather like continual embellishment of existing knowledge?
· Are there ways in which to set up a safe learning space in which big risks can be taken?
· What is the role of failure in exploration of this kind? How does it affect learning? Does some of the most important learning come out of failure? If so, why are we so reluctant to embrace failure and integrate it within larger learning cycles, rather than being tempted to reject it?

A neuro-psychologist, Gert-Jan de Haas, participated in the Connecting Conversation workshop. He suggested that the brain works optimally when goal-oriented and the goal is clear. We also discussed with him what is happening in the brain when we improvise – for example when as performing musicians we reach a point where we let go such precise conscious control of our actions and allow more of a performance flow to take the stage. When this happens, a common experience is often that we are not sure what we are doing, but nevertheless reach a higher level of performance in the eyes of the audience. The scientific evidence is that at these times, the higher cortical processes of the brain are inhibited to allow older, more intuitive parts of the brain to dominate more. Putting these pieces of neurological expertise together, I am then left with another question: what is happening in the brain when we learn things which we did not intend, beyond what we set out to achieve, in some sense off in a different direction, a quantum leap away? Do quantum leaps of thought and understanding require that somewhere along the line the older parts of the brain take over a little from goal-orientation? Does improvisation play a role?

In generating these questions, I am aware that my own learning has taken a leap forwards. I’ve known that fear and discomfort has been a feature of my exploratory work with the relationships between musical improvisation and conversation, but I’ve partly assumed that this was because I just am fearful as a musician. Now I may want to recast my fear and embarrassed response to what immediately feels like artistic failure in a different context. In the framework of learning, these might become an essential part of the major “ah ha” moments.

In conversation with another participant from the Connecting Conversation workshop, it became evident that she, too, had experienced a significant eye-opener. She was learning something about her own history, abilities and passions which marked a profound shift in outlook. It was clear also that she was learning these things not simply at an intellectual level, but physically and emotionally as well –she was emotionally stirred and said herself that she could feel her heart throbbing, her body shaking. Fortunately it was also learning she welcomed, and the look of warmth and release in her eyes was moving.

Christian Burgess, in the first workshop, eloquently reminded us of the devilish presence which we, as performers, find so hard to leave behind: the constant imagined presence of a third eye, a third eye which will be critical of what we do (and critical even before we act, so inhibiting the act), or perhaps even worse a third eye which only admires what we do, lulling us into decadent self-praise. Either way, this third eye makes it so difficult for us to get outside of our own experience, outside our cultural expectation of what does and doesn’t have worth, to allow ourselves to experiment truly and find something new.

This is where my reflection comes full circle – I am really curious to know how other participants from these workshops have responded now a little time has passed. Are their reactions coloured by feelings of “that was rubbish, a waste of time” or “I learned something I didn’t expect”? And can we reconcile such opposite perspectives?